Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

Thanks Isso - I'll be looking for it...

 

Whoa! Isso... this thing is now seriously multi-threaded! It ate about 75-85% of a quad core 2.4ghz CPU. When I single threaded it, it went down to about 24% of the machine.

My 34.1 gB partition (SSD) was written at 22gB into a 7200rpm spinner and it took about 7-min... way faster than before. People might notice this load on their system during the baseline backup... I sure did ... of course incremental snaps will be much less burdensome.

Now it's time to build a REAL test system ... moving to BETA.

 

A quick check of the RECOVERY media production... CD burn went fine, ISO burn went awry (I know not why... we'll see). System recovery of 3-snap + Baseline went as expected, same time as backup.

Looks pretty well so far...

 

Bigger... smaller... equal size... all of the above?

Isso, could you explain a bit what's being done here... like what is consolidation all about and when is it done.

I think we'd all like to hear what this really means. Can I add files/folders/data from an external boot environment and AXTM will pick it all up and absorb it in the snapshot structure?

That you did... that you did.

 

OK, a few issues with my 32 bit XP Pro system.
First, I have 2 DVD drives. E: is a reader and F: is a writer.

When I tried to create the rescue media, I selected F:, however it insists on using E: anyway. So I did create the DVD as I told it to create an ISO and then I burned the ISO.

This comes up OK, but it will not see my Wired Keyboard or my Wireless Mouse.

Also, I did not see where I could compress the back up file. Is this not available?

 

Isso. Version 878 of AX64 doesnt want to do backups on my real system (W7x64). When i select "Make backup now" and click on "Start Backup" nothing happens. The process doesnt start. The progress bar sits on "idle". I reinstalled version 800 and it works but reinstalling v878 the backup then refuses to work. So it's something specific with my system.

If i install v878 in a VM (also W7 x64) the backup works? I cant explain this.

PS. At first i thought that the changes you made were incompatible with RBv10 so I uninstalled RB and reinstalled AX64 (each time uninstalling AX64 first). Still no go. So it's not related to RBv10 (phew!)

Any information you need let me know.

 

Hi oliverjia,

No, unfortunately it doesn't boot. I'll see if it can be fixed. Thank you for pointing this problem.

Isso

 

Froggie,

The reason it takes so much CPU is apparently your SSD supplies data at a high rate and CPU cannot keep up compressing it.
On the other hand on my machine (also SSD, and Core i7 2600K CPU) the usage is only about 15%.

About ISO burn - could you let me know more details on what went wrong? Thank you.

Isso

 

For restoring to empty disk - generally if the new disk size is the same or bigger it should always work. If the size is smaller - it will work provided that your source partition can fit into it. Let's say your source disk has 500GB size, and you back up a 100 GB partition that has 50 GB offset. In such case a 150GB disk (size + offset) should suffice.

For automatic consolidation: when you enable automatic hourly backup the program takes snapshots every hour. Of course if you leave it for a long time the number of snapshots will become very high (thousands per year) and it'll be difficult to manage them. That's why as soon as you enable automatic backups the program starts automatic smart consolidation. It means that it keeps 3 last hourly backups, then 4-hour backups for last day, daily backups for last week, weekly backups for last month, monthly backups for last year, and yearly backups onwards.
That results in a relatively small number of backups that are easy to manage.

So what locking does is it excludes all manual backups from the consolidation process, i.e. they will always be available unless you delete them manually.

For externally changed volume - yes you are right. This means that even if you modify the volume outside of AXTM control, it will detect it and take appropriate actions to keep the backup consistency. Apparently the reason for one of the RollbackRX hacks (disabling the recovery environment) is that it cannot cope with such situation. But they forget that the target volume may be modified by a secondary OS in a multi-boot environment too.
AXTM handles that situations with no problems, and the user is free to use the recovery console, or multiple OSs.

Isso

 

MPSAN,

Thank you for sharing your experience, I'll look into these problems. Are your keyboard and mouse using USB connectors?

For compressing - the backup file is always compressed.

Isso

 

Great, will have look and pass the news

 

Carfal,

This is strange. Could you please do the following: click on the upper left corner of AXTM, and choose "About AXTMAPp..." from the menu. In the dialog please click "Collect logs..." and send the resulting zip file to me. Thank you

Isso

 

Guys, I guess some of you might miss a very important feature - the restore operation doesn't require Recovery media. You can restore right from Backup browser, right from within running OS. In this mode the restore speed is very fast, because only the changed sectors are restored.

Recovery media is needed only when the OS fails to boot. Restore speed is slower, because the entire drive is restored.

Isso

 

View attachment 2013-03-21.log

View attachment system_info.txt

Here are the log files. I had to take them out of the zip file because this forum wont allow me to attach in zip format. I was going to PM them but theres no way to attach files in that arena from what i can see. Anyway, I'm dying to try this new version out so i hope you can see what's wrong.

 

I`m also seeing errors in the logs - should I send them to you via here...or the AX site email address ?

 

Isso, i have mucked around with the MBR on both of my internal HD's (the Seagate Barracuda drives) and used MBRWizard to update them to Win 7/ Server 2008 MBR's. Previously one of these HD's had a standard MBR and the other Win 7 MBR. Nothings changed as far as getting the backup to start on AX64 but i noticed the error logs are slightly larger now. I hope i havent made things worse for you.

View attachment 2013-03-21.log

View attachment system_info.txt

 

carfal,

I think I know what the problem is. Please let me send to you an updated version in 1-2 days.

Fad,

If the program works, no need to send logs - I noticed that we output some errors even if everything works properly. I'll remove them in upcoming version.

Isso

 

So would a machine with Intel RST cause ATM to not create backups? AX64 installs and opens without error but no backup can be made.

 

There is one error still causing an issue:

ERROR:AXCommonStuff.cpp(1154)]StartProcessAsStandardUser->CreateProcessWithTokenW failed, error 1060

That appears to reference the error I`m having with not being able to start the browser from within the program itself...as it`s the same error number...

that, and also the fact that the browser doesn`t open directly in the backup location - even when started manually from the install folder.

 

Well yea...

But your machine is a hyper-threaded, QuadCore fire breathing electron eater (8 processing pipes at 3.8ghz in TURBO mode)... most of us haven't reached that "plateau" quite yet (I'm probably speaking for myself, anyway)

On "smaller" machines, ATXM's processing and disk bandwidth requirements definitely affect normal access of the machine, and on some in a significant way. It was very noticeable on a Core2Quad (4-pipes @ 2.4ghz w/SSD) and an older Pentium-D (dual core at 3.2ghz w/HDD @ 7200rpm). I'm just bringing this up 'cause I believe you'll hear more about it as you go along... food for thought.

 

Same problems as carfal, W8 x64 SSD Raid, cannot create backup, created a set of logs just in case.

 

No, it's not related to RST. I was talking about recovery media. For "no backups" problem - I guess it's the same as carfal. Could you please send the logs (click on the upper left corner of AXTM, choose "About AXTMApp...", then click "Collect logs..." and send the resulting zip file to info@ax64.com, mentioning your wilders nickname). Thank you.

 

Fad, Bionic, could you please send the logs (as per previous message) - I'll check them out. Thank you

 

I agree. The upcoming version will have the priority of those threads lowered, so it won't affect the user experience (it will still take lot of CPU though, but that's expected)

Isso

 

Hello, the KB is NOT USB but the wireless mouse is. They are both Microsoft.